Financial Aid

The Program in Political Science intends to implement, effective immediately, a significant change to its five-year recruitment packages for incoming doctoral students. Our top applicants for the Fall, 2007 semester will be offered Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowships, which will include stipends totaling $18,000 per year, five-year tuition awards at the in-state level and teaching assignments at CUNY colleges during the second, third, and fourth years of the fellowship. We will also continue to offer Chancellor’s Fellowships which include tuition awards and teaching assignments. Special fellowship programs administered by The Graduate School include the MAGNET Program Fellowships, designated for minority applicants, and the Robert E. Gilleece Fellowships, available to incoming full-time doctoral students who demonstrate exceptional academic promise. Each of these fellowships includes a multi-year stipend plus a tuition waiver.

University Fellowships, based on academic merit and financial need, will continue to be made available to eligible students who currently receive such support. Fellowships and assistantships may carry partial or full tuition waivers. A limited number of dissertation awards and fellowships, other grants, and adjunct lectureship positions are also available.

Full time doctoral students enrolled in our program who teach on a CUNY campus are entitled to tuition remission at in-state rates.

For more information on financial aid available through the University, see the Office of Financial Aid web site. Students wishing to apply for financial assistance should refer to the listing of awards in the Student Bulletin or online for application dates and other pertinent information. An admissions applicant seeking financial assistance must submit both the admissions and financial forms and supporting documents by the award deadline date.

The Graduate Center maintains the A-Z Grants and Resources Database, which is an excellent source of funding information.

The following criteria are used to determine financial awards for 3rd year through 5th year Ph. D. candidates. Our guidelines are not listed here in order of importance.

Only those who are enrolled in the Ph.D. program and who currently hold a University Fellowship will be eligible to receive an award.
All students whose registration is blocked for academic reasons are ineligible. If your registration is blocked, you will have received a letter from the Registrar's office. Once you have cleared up the reason for this block, it will not be held against you and you can apply for the next cycle.
We anticipate being able to make awards to eligible, on-going, students with a CUNY GPA of 3.8 or higher. The cut-off may vary from year to year.
Your rate of advancement is taken into account. (How quickly you advance from Level I to III. Please keep in mind that you may "stop the clock" by taking a leave of absence, which you may do for as many as 4 semesters during your tenure in the program. The Awards Committee strongly advises students to take official leaves rather than let their registration lapse.)